In 2024, the forests within the Cairngorms Connect Partnership Area were home to a little over 62% of Scotland’s lekking male Capercaillie (recorded in the National Capercaillie Survey).  The partners are all active in restoring habitats across the Partnership – and much of this restoration is beneficial to Capercaillie.  In this blog, we have summarised the partners’ recent collaborative restoration activity that aligns with the Emergency Plan, to benefit Capercaillie and other forest biodiversity.

Habitat restoration and expansion

Restoring Capercaillie habitat at scale is an important driver for species success. The Emergency Plan calls for ‘collaboration at a landscape scale’ to ‘help ensure the long-term recovery of the Capercaillie population in the UK,’ which, as a landscape-scale Partnership, is exactly what Cairngorms Connect can deliver. 

Woodland expansion – a bigger, connected habitat for Capercaillie.

Capercaillie need big forests.  One of the most significant actions we can take is to make bigger and more-connected forests. The Cairngorms Connect partners currently manage 13000 ha of forest - much of it already suitable for Capercaillie.  The partners share a 200-year vision to expand the Cairngorms Connect forest habitats to their natural limit, doubling the area to around 26000 ha of connected native woodland.  

Recent surveys by the Cairngorms Connect partners, reveal that between January 2019 and March 2024, 888 ha of newly regenerated native forests have been recorded – that’s over a thousand football pitches.  In addition, the partners have planted 1170 ha of new native woodland.

 A collaborative Cairngorms Connect deer management programme is helping to maintain a sustainable population of deer across 600sqkm of forest, moorland, and mountain.  This helps to keep woodlands in good condition and is allowing woodlands to regenerate naturally.  You can learn more about the results of 30+ years of deer management in the Partnership area here.

^{Photos (L to R): Regenerating trees at Loch a Garbh-Choire and planting Downey Willow seedings at Loch A'an on RSPB Scotland Abernethy Reserve. Credit: Scotland the Big Picture and Lizzie Brotherston}

Scots pine plantation restructuring

In Strathspey, native Scots Pine plantations are a valuable timber commodity, as well as being a vital component of the network of Capercaillie habitats.  As plantations mature, the light regime changes, affecting the type of forest dwarf-shrub field layer.  Capercaillie favour a forest floor with a high proportion of light-loving Blaeberry – a species rich in invertebrates, as well as nutritious berries, leaves and shoots. 

The Cairngorms Connect partners have been actively managing Scots Pine plantations – through a mix of commercial, and semi-commercial thinning (reducing stem density to promote stronger growth in the remaining tree crop), as well as restructuring to create deadwood and open areas in the forest.   Since 2019, the Cairngorms Connect partners have restructured 2,275 ha of Scots Pine plantation, opening up glades to fill areas with sunlight and healthy Blaeberry, to positively support Capercaillie and other forest biodiversity.  Partners have also removed 7802ha of non-native conifers, which also opens up the forest structure, and creates niches for native forest to regenerate.

Woodland grazing

Natural forests are characterised not just by their species and their physical structure, but also by ecological processes – for example disturbances created by wild grazing mammals. These disturbances are a normal function of a healthy habitat, and certain species – including Capercaillie - that survive in native woodlands are adapted to exploit and benefit from these ecological processes.  

At RSPB Scotland Abernethy National Nature Reserve in the Cairngorms Connect Partnership area, the reserve team has undertaken ‘large-scale field-layer disturbance”, using cattle grazing, and a robotic mower, mimicking missing natural processes.

So far, the team has grazed or cut over 1100 ha of in-forest field-layer. This creates a complex mosaic of open areas, cover and food plants, provide space for Capercaillie chicks to forage, hide, to dry out on wet days, and to move around the forest. Although this study is ongoing, early results suggest that Capercaillie usage of the grazed areas appears to have increased significantly - the Capercaillie lek in the grazing area has more than tripled, and in both the grazed and cut areas the team has recorded large broods on trail cameras.

This work is supported by the EU LIFE Programme-funded LIFE 100% for Nature Project, and The Famous Grouse.

 ^{Mike Butler checks the grazing cows on RSPB Scotland Abernethy Reserve. Credit: Scotland the Big Picture}

Bog woodland restoration

Bog woodlands are an important habitat for Capercaillie, as plants that grow on boggy ground (like Cotton Grass) provide food sources for the breeding female Capercaillies, and the high density of bog invertebrates is a vital source of protein for chicks.  Historically, many of these bogs were drained and planted with non-native conifers. The Cairngorms Connect partners are restoring these areas, by blocking up drainage ditches, and encouraging boggy areas to ‘re-wet’.  Since 2019, 77ha of bog woodland on RSPB Scotland Abernethy and NatureScot Dell Woods have been rewetted by blocking drains, using low ground pressure excavators and hand labour.

Looking ahead, work is ongoing to identify and restore more bog woodland, led, in many areas, by the Cairngorms National Park Peatland Action Team. The Forestry and Land Scotland Strathspey Land Management Plan identifies bog woodland areas for restoration within the life of the Plan, and RSPB Abernethy undertake to restore up to 20ha of bog woodland habitat annually until all sites are complete.

Other management measures

Diversionary feeding

Since 2019, the Cairngorms Connect Predator Project has been investigating the potential of diversionary feeding to reduce the risk of predation of Capercaillie nests and broods.  This was the focus of a PhD study carried out by Jack Bamber^*. Through strategically re-distributing carrion, predators are discouraged from further foraging during the Capercaillie breeding season. The trial was conducted over two years and 60 sites within the Cairngorms Connect Partnership Area and results are promising. Other land managers in the Capercaillie range are now exploring this as an opportunity for reducing predator impacts on Capercaillie. 

^{*PhD researcher Jack Bamber from the University of Aberdeen’s School of Biological Sciences led the study, supervised by ecologists from the universities of Aberdeen and St Andrews, and from Forestry and Land Scotland.  The project was also funded by Wildland Limited and ELSP.}

Reducing disturbance

Across the Partnership, we are carrying out works to minimise disturbance to Capercaillie, especially through the breeding season of March-August.

Across the Cairngorms Connect Partnership Area, a huge range of staff, volunteers, businesses, and community groups are alert to risks of disturbance to Capercaillie and engage with visitors during the Capercaillie breeding season to build awareness of disturbance risks.  The ranger services that operate in the Partnership area promote the Lek It Be campaign led by the Cairngorms Capercaillie Project.  Messages are reinforced by seasonal signage and interpretation to encourage responsible activity by visitors.

Alongside this campaign, teams on site are also working with local communities to identify ways to encourage recreation away from key areas for Capercaillie at sensitive times of the year.

^{Ranger Ewan talks to members of the public at Hill to Grill, a Cairngorms Connect Partnership celebration of local forests. Credit: Catriona Parmenter Photography}

Fence removal and marking

Deer fences are effective at protecting trees in areas of high deer density, but they pose a significant collision threat to Capercaillie and other birds of forests and moorlands.  They are also expensive to erect and maintain; they fragment deer habitat and prevent Deer from acting as seed vectors (carrying seeds in their fur and faeces) within fenced-off areas.

Over the past 30 years, the Cairngorms Connect partners have been removing deer fences, preferring to manage the impacts of deer browsing by reducing the Deer population through a collaborative programme of Deer stalking. 

In the small number of areas where fences are used to protect trees, vulnerable plant communities, or research plots, these fences are appropriately marked to minimise collision risk.

^{Marked fences protecting aspen at Abernethy, credit Amelie Sumpter, and fence removal at Wildland Limited, credit: Ronan Dugan}

Conclusion

This non-exhaustive list covers the short- to medium- term actions the Cairngorms Connect Partnership is carrying out to restore habitats and to benefit many species, including Capercaillie. Another factor influencing the Capercaillie population is climate change. Changing weather patterns can impact the number of chicks that make it to adulthood. In the face of a changing climate, Capercaillie need more expansive and variable habitat network – enabling them to adapt their behaviour to the prevailing conditions. Our restoration work combines short-term and long-term habitat gains, at a vast scale, to build robustness to climate change impacts. As well as benefitting Capercaillie, most of the measures above make the forest and habitats more resilient to climate change (e.g. restored bog woodland holding water in drought) and help Capercaillie cope better with extremes (e.g. grazing and cutting increases invertebrates so there’s more food in a cool year).

Cairngorms Connect is also contributing to actions to reduce carbon emissions from land and to increasing carbon sequestration, thereby reducing the long-term risks of climate change.

Restoring a landscape and providing a safe home to native wildlife is no small task. It takes time, proper resourcing, collaboration, and the ability to work in the long (long) term, as well as fighting short-term emergencies. It’s a task that relies on hope for a brighter future. In the case of Capercaillie, that hope is fuelled by evidence that this work is paying off - despite national decline, the population of Capercaillie within the Cairngorms Connect Partnership Area has remained stable since 2011.

^{Camera trap footage of a mature Capercaillie brood on RSPB Scotland Abernethy Reserve, courtesy of Jack Bamber.}

This restoration work has been funded by the individual partners, as well as grants from Scottish Government, other supporters and – in the case of RSPB, FLS and NatureScot – support from the Endangered Landscapes and Seascapes Programme.